Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s City Council floor leader
lashed out at the Catholic Church on Wednesday for rejecting the mayor’s
compromise offer on water fees for nonprofits even after, the alderman
claimed, failing to clean its own house on the priest sex abuse scandal.
“They’re clearly not owning up to the fact that
there are people out there damaged by the church and they’re talking
about free water. Really?” said Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th).
Describing
himself as “a Catholic, not a happy one these days,” O’Connor said,
“The church has so many internal problems, they ought to satisfy their
own problems and they ought to address the things that are in the paper
every day and stop talking about free water. Quit saying that they
handled things right in the past or . . . or, even worse, saying
mistakes were made in the past, but they’re not correcting those
mistakes.”
Earlier this week, Cardinal Francis George jumped
into the controversy caused by Emanuel’s decision to cut off the free
water spigot to struggling churches and nonprofits that provide a safety
net of social services to needy Chicagoans.
The cardinal appeared at a news conference called
by an “inter-faith coalition” of religious leaders to reject the mayor’s
offer to restore the free water perk to groups with assets under $1
million.
The cardinal called the lake a “gift from God” and
said maybe “we should start charging the city for water” — not the other
way around.
The remark was obviously meant to be a joke, but
O’Connor didn’t take it that way. He essentially advised the cardinal
not to push his luck.
“For Christ sake, we sell everybody water. And now
all of the sudden because they’re a church, we’re not supposed to sell
them water?” O’Connor said.
“At some point, people are gonna say, `How `bout
looking at property taxes” and eliminating the property tax exemption
for churches and nonprofits? “We’ll give you free water. How `bout
paying for the property you guys own?”
Archdiocese of Chicago Chancellor Jimmy Lago has
warned that that the phase-out of the water waiver would cost Catholic
churches $2.5 million a year, forcing them to close schools and reduce
the safety net of overnight shelters, after-school programs and other
social services they provide to needy Chicagoans.
O’Connor is not impressed with that argument, either.
“The calculations that they did essentially said,
`We provide these services. We do the education. We do all this,’ and
they want to bill the city for actually doing what a church is supposed
to do,” the alderman said.
“The mayor is trying to compromise and, if they
think that it’s God’s gift to us, well then should we charge any citizen
of Chicago for water? Should we charge any of the suburbs for water?
Stick to praying and stick to saving souls and let us run the city.”
Under the mayor’s new proposal nonprofits worth more than $1 million, would get discounts, but not free water.
Nonprofit groups with net assets between $1-$10 million would be eligible for a 60 percent exemption from water payments.
Groups with net assets between $10-$250 milion will
be eligible for a 25 percent exemption.
Groups with more than $250
million would receive no exemption. And public museums would maintain
their 20 percent exemption regardless of net asset level.
Religious leaders said the water fee exemption should be based on operating budgets — not net assets.
Lago condemned O’Connor’s “extreme” and
“over-the-top” reaction to, what Lago called a “reasonable” request from
religious leaders.
“It’s unconscionable that Ald. O’Connor would
refer to the sex abuse scandal as his central argument to oppose
reviewing this water fee waiver,” Lago said.
“This is not an issue of the Catholic Church. If
he was paying attention, he would know there were hundreds and hundreds
of churches on the West, South and North sides and a lot of nonprofits,
especially overnight shelters, that care a great deal about their
ability to deliver service.”
Lago argued that Emanuel’s proposed compromise was “delivered without any consultation” with religious leaders.
“We asked for clarity about what `net assets’ mean
and, from what we’re able to determine, pretty much only the
street-front churches would be eligible because most of the churches
synagogues and mosques in this city would have property valued over $1
million, but operating deficits in their budgets,” he said.
Emanuel said Wednesday he believes his offer
strikes the “proper balance” between the city’s need to eliminate a
$20-million-a-year perk it can no longer afford and the need to
recognize the social service contribution made by religious
organizations and nonprofits.
“In the campaign, I made a pledge. We’re not gonna have free water. We can’t do that,” he said.
“We made, in my first budget, what I think are the
right changes. They’ve come back. We measured it. I’ve talked over the
last four or five months [about] a way that nonprofits and religious
groups can continue to pay something, but also the balance that, we’re
gonna change the rules that existed before we can’t afford it as a city
because we have difficult times.”
The mayor has already softened the blow once in
response to aldermanic concerns about struggling parish churches.
Instead of forcing them to pay full price for city water, he offered a
60 percent water discount in 2012, 40 percent in 2013 and 20 percent in
2014 and beyond.